


Scythes and masks

by SilverGopher



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, grim dark, heavy au, if atlas soldiers die like lemmings, no beta we die like atlas soldiers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29487315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverGopher/pseuds/SilverGopher
Summary: In a heavily AU world, a reincarnates makes do with their lot in life. it might even be fun.





	1. Reborn

Death is easy. Its omni present, omnipotent. Its in everyone and everything. We caress it, we decorate it. We laud it. We polish and buff and lavish it. Death is in every breath we take, floating upon every breeze, its in every bite we take, every movement of our hands, expansion of our lungs. Once one accepts this fundamental truth, death loses its terror. It becomes normal, like the breeze. Death was the easiest thing I ever did. The dealing, and eventually the receiving. I died in a flash of light and fire, a bullet at close range, or an explosion maybe? I didn't know, I died nearly instantly after-all. And then I was in a red tinged darkness, and it was peaceful, and so in that darkness I had time to think over my life, to put old bugbears to rest. Not forgiveness, never forgiveness, but to get over and past them, and they flowed away from me, lost in that red darkness. And before I knew it I was being squeezed, crushed and moved and pain, I struggled I screamed, I acted like an utter defenseless child, and then in a blinding flash of clinical whiteness I was free but I couldn't breathe, I was gasping, choking on fluid I didn't even know was there, and then an impact. Harsh and sudden and I could breathe. Every breeze hurt me in a way I wasn't used to, breathing hurt me, everything was blurry and far too large. Holy shit was I reincarnated??

the figures moved in circles and talked in too loud voices, and in a weird pidgin language I understood only in snatches. “name...red... Branwen” “can't... rose... Branwen....eyes”

well that was ominous as fuck. And then I was bundled in clothe, swaddled and put in the arms of a woman with what seemed to be a mane of black hair, glaring red eyes, and was that a fucking katanna!?

I tried to focus again especially when she ripped a portal into existence with her sword, which was also red, but I couldn't. Infant body meant infant levels of energy, so I fell asleep again. When I woke up it was in some place far colder, and had the distinct tang of mountain air. I was settled into a cradle and fed from a bottle. This became the pattern, the red eyed woman would speak to me while I was fed from a bottle, and I learnt language at her knee. In time I would learn to walk under my aunts tutelage, and then I would relearn how to fight.


	2. Learning at the knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> religion and myth and roles

I learnt many things at my aunts knee, and my fathers when he was able to visit. We were Branwens, ancestral raiders, and an important part of the kingdom of mistral. You see humanity had an enemy, ancient and unstoppable. The Grimm. Everyone who could hold a gun fought them, but some soldiers weren't tested. Or they had failed and needed to be punished. And so the Branwens did their work. We acted as mettle testing and punishment from god both. We raided their encampments slew a specific number and left, and the survivors were hardened by the experience, more qualified for their tasks. In addition to this ancient agreement there was a tithe. Every five years two Branwens were sent out from the tribe to the huntsman academies, to become warriors against the grim tide. To be as a bulwark and a knife in the dark both. The headsmen of academies act as generals, politicians, and war-leaders, and they require fixers. No one is a better fixer than a huntsman trained Branwen. If the Branwen is in line to inherit when the tribal leader dies, then one of them is allowed to return to the tribe and take their position, which my aunt did. My father visited sometimes, along with a woman, named summer rose, my birth mother. They never spent long with me, but long enough.

At age three they started letting me hear myths, of the battle maiden, and the brother gods, of divinity and sin, and the thin line between the two. Of all the faiths practiced by the tribe it wass the battle maiden that called to me, the sword in the light, the knife in the dark. She was a goddess of battle, of flesh and mind and all forms. Her sacrifices were of blood, grimm human fuanus, it did not matter which, and her holy grounds were battlefields. She gave victory in battle in exchange for devotion, and her afterlife was one of war and carnage and feasts and victories ever lasting. It is said among the cult of the battle maiden that she is the reason the brother gods no longer hold dominion over remnant, for their failures to rule it properly she cast them out. I liked her a lot, and began to pray to her. I offered her a sacrifice before training that I might learn to kill better in her name. Her symbol was a simple cruciform sword, and I wore it on a chain around my neck, and prayed with it in my hands.

I grew under the auspicious of the Branwen tribe, and participated in my first raid. A disciplinary one. This unit had fucked the pooch, allowing three whole settlements to die under their watch without a finger lifted, because of the settlements Faunus heritage, ignoring how everyone must work together against the Grimm. By mandate of law and need both. We were to kill them all.


	3. Raids and Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> life is rough, and so is death, but everything happens as it will

in the hours before the raid, as we massed and huddled around the campfire, aunt Raven came over and unlocked my aura, a momentous occasion. She said the ancient B ranwen words,

“by my shoulder I give you the strength to stand,

by my soul I give you arms,

by your strength the world trembles,

go forth in our name”

I had been told that other cultures words were more about defense, or protecting the innocent, but that had never been the Branwen way. They gave me a brace of child sized kukris, heavy angled chopping knives, and a ever action rifle. Raven knelt by me and told me, 

“try to stay back and use the rifle, but if you have to use the knives then do so. Don't go into this with fear in your heart, these are failed soldiers, their aura has been sealed by their commanders. Pray to the battle maiden before we embark”

the kukris sat heavy on my cartridge belt, loaded as it was with heavy pistol rounds. And my rifle seemed to be a Remington 1895 repeating carbine, but in grey and white and black, bearing the mark of an atlas made firearm. They supposedly made the best military grade kit in the world, but their sense of ergonomics had always been lacking I felt.

They handed me a bandanna and tied it about my face, it was blue I remember, the color of an unblooded youth. If I killed in this coming raid id earn my mask. As a member of raven's family it would be black to mark my ability to inherit should she die. 

The walk was long, trough bramble and brush, but we reached the outpost and then we went to raid. I tried to fufill the role I had been given and act as fire support, so I put the sights on a mans chest sand pulled the trigger. My rifle bucked in my hands, and the man fell with a spurt of blood flying out behind him. I moved to the next mechanically, ejecting the round and letting it hit the stones around me with a soft ping. The next man jumped as I fired, in an attempt to dodge a low cut from another tribes man, so my shot shattered his leg, and as he fell I put another trough his skull, painting a pink mist behind him.

Another small group was charging me, so I put the crosshairs on the front runner, and put a round trough his sternum, but they were too close to me now, and I couldn't rely on having enough time to work the rifles action. In a rush I pulled out my kukri's and met them in a sudden charge, coming in low I struck at their shins trying to carve flesh and shatter bone, but my six year old arms lacked strength, even enhanced by aura, but I spun trough them and came in an overhand chop on the rear runner of the three. My blade met his collar bone, and there was resistance there, but with the sound of steel scraping bone I drove it trough and into his ribcage. 

no time to retrieve my kukri I turn to block a blade flickering out at me from the next man, but it carved me good, caught me above my left eye, and carved straight trough it in a jagged line, that curve where my blade caught it at the end, as he pulled his blade back for a second strike, and I found myself half blind and in so much pain, I lashed out on instinct, and felt my knife tug trough flesh, he was grasping at his entrails as I left him in the dirt and met the next man, far too soon? I didn't think I could move that fast, but I kneed him between the legs and when he bent over I slit his throat.

I stumbled back over to my rifle, falling briefly over a stone, but I managed to retrieve it. I put the sights back over the man who took my eye, and blew his brains out. The battle was ramping down so I put a second shot trough his heart, out of spite. Then I staggered over too the rest of the tribe, and smiled beneath my bandanna and bloody wound. It would have been harrowing to other people, but I lived in a dead world before I ever lived in this dying one.

The walk back to camp was long, but the other raiders talked and told stories of their kills, and their spoils. I was too young yet to carry my weapons and my own spoils, so a cousin carried them for me as I stumbled over dirt and rocks, and tried to adjust to a halved field of vision and a loss of depth perception. I knew it was the kind of thing one could adjust too, and even shoot trough but I wasn't looking too hopeful just yet. The talk of conversation was largely on what mask would fit me, someone remarked, “perhaps a wolf, she's got the teeth for it.”

“id prefer a hyena.”

“whyzat?”

“if I wanted to look like a wolf, id just not wear a mask. Sides, I laughed after the eye thing, that's pretty hyena like.”

“spose so”

After the raid I was given a mask, like the rest of then wore, but mine was in the shape of a predatory hyena, black except for its fanged smile and the red outlines around the black lenses. Its ear stood up straight and proud, and I would go on to model my hair after a hyenas mane. This mask denoted me as in the line of succession. I had earnt it trough blood and battle and I was to wear it till the day I died. The mask was thought to be the face we showed the world, it was of religious significance especially in the cult of the battlemaiden, that the Branwens in particular were adherents' too. There were many cults of the battlemaiden but the Branwen branch was big on masks. that night I cut my shoulder length hair on the sides of my head, and braided back my hair on the top and back, to form a braided mane, and emerged into the world, masked and braided and smiling fit to kill from behind black lenses and white paint.

The day after my first raid at breakfast, as a fellow member of the tribe taught me the proper protocols for eating with other people who weren't my spouse or children, which really boiled down to lift the mask up, but don't show more than your nose. my father arrived, in a flutter of crown feathers, shapeshifting from bird into man. He was a tall broad-shouldered man, in semi casual wear, with a maroon cloak, held fastened with a pin in the shape of the battle maidens blade, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and a Branwen mask in the shape of a bird, in white with black outlining, marking him as a member of the main family who had past up his inheritance via the tithe. He had a large mechashift sword on his back, and he sat next to me with a smile in his voice and said, “oh you got your mask? How'd that go?”

“i killed seven men and lost an eye father.”

“well fuck.”

and then he passed me his flask, and told me it was alright if I had a sip or two, because that really sucked. I took a sip, and gagged, and the bandits around the fire laughed at my plight. I didn't gag because it was strong, in my past life I exclusively drank vodka and tequila. No I gagged because it was whiskey. Never liked the stuff.

“aright so, little hyena, how do you feel about being my apprentice? Because the man who holds my tithe wants my daughter to be his next tithe, on account of I've done such good work for him.”

“i am unsure father, I.. I'm sorry I just had an idea. Can I call you the qrow father? After-all you turn into a crow it seems fitting.”

he luaghed a fair bit, and said, “Sure thing kiddo. Anyway if you become my apprentice ill work you hard. Learning a scythe and how to shoot with one eye is gonna be exceptionally difficult. And the life of a culler isnt an easy one. We'll be hunting unsanctioned bandits as much as we hunt grimm, possiby more so. If you didnt like that raid becoming my apprentice is proably not the best fit for you.”

“i enjoyed the raid , except for losing my eye to be quite honest qrow father.”

“i'l go talk to raven then. Put this on, it denotes you as an apprentice culler. We'll go meet up with your mom, and your sister, you've never met but I figure you can meet her once or twice while im training you.” and he rummaged in his bag and pulled out a red cloak with a hood, I swept it over my shoulders, settling it against my elbow length shirt and bandage wraps for my hands. I stood up and dusted off my knee length skirt, and followed qrow father as he went to go speak to raven aunt, scuffing my boots lightly in the dirt as I did so. 

Soon I would be learning a new weapon, and a new role. It is strange that I was born in such an alt universe of rwby but Ive enjoyed it immensely so far, I laughed a bit at that thought. It was an eerie high pitched cackle, befitting of my mask. Having a laugh like that and teeth and jaws that can and have cracked bone leads me to think im a hyena fuanus not a wolf fuanus. While rare it can happen to couples of different Faunus type or couples' where ones a human. Actually yeah I was probably a hyena. I laughed again. As I observed my aunt in her black mask marked with gold, and my uncle in his white mask marked with black I thought on those masks, and how id likely be wearing one like my uncles sooner than later.

“raven she's my daughter, and soon my apprentice. Ozpin has asked for her specifically as a tithe, and im the best one to train her.”

“i know that qrow! Im fond of her is all.”

“she accepted the cloak already. I told her of what our duties would be and she accepted.”

“i can't really do anything about it then can I?”


	4. apprentice ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> apprentice ship for a culler is rough and bloody, but Red Branwen can handle it

Learning the scythe was tricky, it was unlike other polearms, it required far more dexterity and finesse than one might expect. It was a fighting style with a lot of flourishes, movements meant to put the cutting edge behind a limb and move it forward. Learning properly sycthe forms with my particular disability was difficut and qrow father wasnt sure how to teach me, except trough sparring and pointing out my weakenesses until they they were corrected. He would throw stones at me from my blind spot and I would have to block them passed on nothing but the sound of their passing using my proper forms. 

It was hellish, but progress was fast. Pain is a great motivator. It was not easy to learn but I preserved. My fathers reputation and my own skill demanded it. He told me of my future, of my designation as a culler. Cullers are solo hunters who work directly for the headmasters. They elimate grimm migrations, hunt down fugitive, and act as a striking sword, and a posioned dagger. As ozpins culler I would do a lot of underhanded work in the wilds and citties both, and so I needed a weapon that could do both. His scythe was a sword for city work, and mine would be a gun he thought, guns were useful for fighting Grimm, and the strains of humanity both. I luagehd a fanged smile behind my mask when he said that. I had hyena heritage from my mother's side, though she was a wolf, hers was expressed as ear, mine as sharpened teeth.

Culler training was brutal, and there were many incidents I could use to illustrate that for you, because they all seem to run together except these two. My first solo grimm excursion was rough father handed me a war-scythe with its blade in the right configuration, the first time I had handled a live scythe, and he told me, “ this is your first time hunting grimm as a culler would. I will save your life but not until your at the door of death understand? This is how my father taught me , and this is how i'll teach you. Remember your fundamentals and you'll come trough this alive.”

“yes qrow father”

and then he tossed me out of the tree into a horde of beewolves so I rolled upright with a rising slash that bisected one, used that momentum to turn into a spin aimed at leg level t oget some distance, that I transitioned into a spining forward movement that rammed the point of my scythe trough the skull of another Beowulf. I took a claw strike against my back then, drawing a bloody furrow in it, I hadn't yet mastered passive aura shielding, I moved that quickly up my to-do list because that hurt, maiden-damn it!

I spun again and took its head in retaliation, and received a bite on my left fore arm, so I punched it in the skull plate with my right to make it let go. Caughte my falling scythe and disemboweled it as I moved past. There was another behind me, and my need to escape, to get far away and then come back to kill it was so strong and then I was fifty feet away from it surrounded by crow feathers drifting on the breeze huh, that was easy, I turned to face the horde once more, and let out a cackle ,and charged back in, spinning my scythe in arcs meant to take limbs, leaving three beewolves limping as I spun on my knees, and disemboweled the alpha. I was woozy from boodloss at this point but I went across the field, and drove the but spike of the training scythe trough the heart of all the Grimm that were still moving. then i collapsed.

I woke up in camp, with bandages wrapped around me, and a father who passed a canteen of high proof spirits to me. We ate a MRE, cooked over the fire together as he disected my fight. 

“your crowd control is exceptional for your age, and so is your killing intent. Your laugh can be used for psychological warfare, but not against the Grimm. Your left side is still a weakness, so we'll be fixing that, and you unlocked your semblance. It seems to be a mix of your mothers and mine. You teleport in a cloud of my feathers. She teleports in a cloud of roses. Eat up, we're doing more training today. But first im teaching you how to mend that cloak, and how to shield with your aura.” 

That became routine I was sent out near alone into hordes of Grimm and learnt to use my scythe trough experience as much as instruction. After every hunt, my qrow father would go trough what I had done right and what I had done wrong. And that was my routine, wake up and perform the forms while he tossed stones at me before breakfast. Spar after breakfast, general conditioning after sparring. Running, weights, calisthenics, then aura practice, I would shield and he would throw more stones at me, that gradually graduated to knives as my aura shielding became more instinctive. Then a hunt in the afternoon and evening. At night he taught me to track under the ight of the moon, saying if I could do it in the dark I could do it any other time, and also that as a Faunus I had night vision so it didnt really matter. I learnt to track grimm by disturbances on tree branches and the trace ichor left behind from their movements. And humans via foot prints and bent branches and scuffed grass.

I left the early stages of my training with a number of scars across my body, scars that would only be added too as I learnt to track, and hunt trough the underbrush. After two years of this, and my qrow father disappearing to perform his own missions, he judged me old enough and skilled enough to join him on one such mission. The Branwens are sanctioned bandits. Other tribes are not, and I learnt to be as unto death in their midst, black mask and red cloak, the mark of an apprentice culler. I remember my first bandit hunt with my qrow father. This tribe had sacked a settlement and stolen women and children. We were to track them and eliminate them. Recover them if feasible, eliminate the taken if not. It was brutal, but the outlying settlements didn't have the mandated therapists of the capitals, and a person with too much trauma is a Grimm draw. And by tradition an apprentice culler can't enter the capital until they've reached journeyman level. 

So we followed bootprints and broken branches until we reached a minor encampment hidden behind a palisade made of sharpened tree trunks. Qrow father took us into the branches of a tree to observe and see, I counted ten bandits, only three seemed go have aura. “the ones with aura are mine, ill leave the rest to you, little hyena.”

“yes qrow father”

and he shifted into a bird and alit amongst them, before coming out of his animoprhed form with a rising slash that cuaght the first aura wielding bandit unaware, splitting her skull from underneath. I leapt over the palisade wall from my spot and moved my scyhe in arcs that made it as a buzzsaw, amongst the three around another campfire. as I carved my way trough them, limbs flying and blood arcing, I thought of my next steps, and a bandit dressed in rags wielding a machete came at me from my left.

I pulled a heavy revolver from my belt, and shot her trough the right breast aiming for the heart, my head had turned towards her, but I heard one coming from my right as well, so I put a shot trough his get, and spun my scythe around me a in a circle to take the heads of anyone still standing. My targets still numbered four standing, so I darted over with a disembowling slash that took one, followed by a teleportation backwards and a step forwards followed by using my scythe as a pick, completely splitting a skull and hooking my blade behind the neck of the last one, and yanking forward. As I did it the man I gut-shot shot me in the back, and it pierced trough my aura, a sufficiently powerful singular blow can disrupt aura afterall. 

I staggered forwards but turnt around and faced him and put a revolver round trough his face. Protocol dictated making sure the work was finished, so I went over the field of those I had done and drove my butspike trough any that moved finishing any and all who still lived with my scythe. It was brutal soul tarnishing work. I loved it. Maybe it was because I had been broken before this life, maybe it was the hyena heritage heritage but I loved the hunt. My father came over to me then, tsked about the gunshot wound, and helped me assess the condition of the captive. “red, we're Branwens, so we don't feel things the same as other more normal folks. That means it can be hard to judge who is and isnt salvageable, but it makes retiring those who aren't easier. So now ill show you the signs to look for. Glassy eyes, vacant stares, and flinching at any and all movement are signs they might be too far gone. If they've gone non verbal and exhibit these symptoms we retire them. If they don't go non verbal we talk to them and get their story. Depending on how well they relay it we make a judgment call, alright?”

“yes qrow father”

the people were not salvageable. These bandits were particularly nasty. We burnt down their dweling ,and buried the citizens deep. Leaving the bandits for the crows.

After that hunt qrow father decided it was time I met my sister, one yang xioa-long. Apparently she was ravens duaghter, but she was raised by my biological mother, and was thus considered via Branwen tradition to have been my sister. Our first meeting was awkward. And ended in a viscious fight but when the fight ended, we shared a mea of sweets, and watched television together. I had never watched tv before and showed poor etiquette about it, talking loudly about how inaccurate its portrayal of animan grimm was. Yang didnt seem to mind, she was just happy to hold me tight. I supposed that was nice, if a bit awkward. I was not very tactile in this life. When we left it was with the knowledge we would try to vist three times a year. We never ahcived three visits in a year but we reliably made it to two of them, so thats something.

When I was ten, after four years of training and killing with a practice scythe, my father decided to help me build my own mechashift weapon. So we went into a town and he had me earn from the local smith, how things interlocked, how clasps and motors and hinges could turn a sniper rifle into a scythe. My father wanted me to learn to use a rifle again so we built a sniper scythe. 

Originally the rifle barrel was going to be the end of the scythe, but I regeusted that it be at the tip, due to using the butspike quite often in my fighting stye. He looked at my mask and red cloak, and did it. I spent hours in that hot forge hammering thins out with him and learning the rules of mechashift. We ran dust into the blade and the steel, and when it was done my father paid the man, and taught me me to shoot, and kill, with the sniper rifle in my scythe, once he helped me learn enough to build and maintain it. I was eventually able to kill a man at any distance with it, and potentially use it for mobility, though my semblence was better for that mobility. Disappearing in a burst of crows feathers and teleporting to my target is a far better way to cover ground than recoil, with time I learnt to use it to gain the optimal range for a sudden strike or retreat. Experience that earned me more scars. My arms were a patchwork of them from guarding against blades and claws when my aura breaks, my back has a number gunshots and claws and sword bows both from trying to flee a battle turned south, there are many across my front, and my legs. I do not mind them, as they do not inhibit my mobility or combat efficiency.


	5. Meeting the man who sends the message

After every hunt qrow father takes me to a bar and we drink and he apologizes to me for what I must become. But the contracts are as old as the kingdoms and theyre the only reason the tribe survives. I understand of course, the tribe is essential to the way this world works. I will live for the tribe, and I will die for it. To abadon it is to abandon the world itself. I spent years with qrow father luaghing living, and hurting, as we hunted up and down anima, and then I was fifeteen, old enough to enter the academy if ozpin streched it, and it was time for the tithe. Next tithe I would be too old for it so qrow father took me to a huntsmans grade shop, and we acquired huntsmans grade hunting attire for me.

Before wwe went in he took me aside and said, “red, your no longer an apprenctice, your a journeyman, so you can pick your own equipement. You'll earn your colored cloak when you leave beacons education. Rembember to wear your mask whatever you choose, and pick something practical because we'll be picking up several of these.” and so I traded my scuffed combat boots for a new pair of steel toes, with red laces, black and red camo cargo pants, a knit swetaer, steel backed gloves, and a steel cuirass that reached the bottom of my ribs over a leather backing that reached my waist. It was engraved with snakes. I liked it. Fit for urban or forest or jungle combat against human and grimm.i also got some dust reinforced braces for my forearms because I have a tendency to use them to block attacks. Qrow father paid for seven copies of my dust reinforced kit, told me to change into one of them, and then gave me a graduatation present of his own. A kukri, and a heavy magnum pistol, stylized like a dessert eagle, with black crow feathers etched into the steel, on a dust reinforced cartridge belt, sized for the 12.7mm anti material rounds I favored. I nodded, and hugged him for the gift and set the belt to hang below my curiass . And we left.

I traveled on my first bullhead that night, it was a spacious aircraft, part hovercraft part plane, and it was a remarkably smooth ride. I could fit a good squad in here. It was no wonder it was the primary transport aircraft for all this worlds militaries. The flight from anima to sanus was long, so I asked my father questions, about beacon, its admission protocalls, what the citizens of the city were like. How early I would be expected to perform jobs for ozpin. The answers were in orfer, beacon is a fortifed castle-school made of white marble, the intiation is mostly redundant for me because ive already been accepted, but ozpin will want to see my skills, the citizens were by and large peaceful, and not prone to any great unrest, even crime was mostly nonviolent. Very early, there had been some minor incidents with a white fang cell that had gone rogue, and high leader khan had requested ozpin deal with the ex communicato cell before they cuased too many issues. I nodded, and we shared one last set of drinks and mozarella sticks, my prefered appetizer, and then we slept the rest of the way. I woke up about an hour before we reached our destination and too in the interior one last time before cracking open a book, it was a uxurious craft, truly. Leather seats, an ac heater system, plenty of legroom, storage ockers for kit. Wood furninshing. I liked it a lot. Then I turned to my book, the man with two souls. It was a good read, more philosopihical than I tend towars, but solid nothiness. As the bullhead touched down in a grassy field with a landing pad in it, I was given one last hugg by qrow father and left the aircraft as he went to perform his next mission.

“chief ozpin, it is good to meet you at last. I am Red of tribe branwen, and I have been tithed to you as a culler. I have been trained for nine years by the qrow father and deemed of journeyman skill. i can hunt up to beringels moving in groups of two in a solo capacity. My weapon is patterend after the qrow fathers with an emphasis in its rifle form on singe target damage. I am ready to learn and serve chief ozpin.”

“ah I see raven tuaght you how to adress me at our first meeting. Its formal and old styed but it is useful no? Walk with me”

I walked with him, taking in the man I would serve unto his death or mine. He was tall, and seemed of middle age though with silver hair he carried a cane but I felt confident it was a weapon. He wore a green and black suit, and a pair of small sungasses with squiggled frames.

“the white fang cell operating in the city has begun to coopt other criminal groups, and their antics have begun to become excessive. We have an adresses, I want you to sent a message to them. Intatiation is in two days, so you will have a night to rest after your excursion.”

“how many survivors do you desire chief ozpin?”

“none.”

“understood.”

and I was sent into the city of vale by another bullhead this one in beacon colors, and I walked trough downtown. I llowed muself a singular thirty minutes to be awed by the sights. Vale wasnt my first city but it was the first in this life, and that meant it was special Vale was a remarkably clean city, and it lacked the presence of armed soldiers on the streets that would be seen in mistral. The soldiers manned the walls instead, leaving the city to the police and the hunters. The city was done in shades of white marble, and green in the uptown area, moving to more of a steel grey as I entered the ghettos. My target was a large warehouse, of concrete construction, blocky and rundown, n the ghetto area of the town. I entered the building trough an upper window and crounched on the rafter, observing the speech given by a fuanus in black. This was the cell leader., I called ozpin on the comm and asked him for instructions.

“chief ozpin? Theres a compication. A white fang member in a different uniform, I susepect he might be the cell leader. Picture attached.”

“yes that is adam tuarus, leader of this cell. He is above your current capabilities. Ill send qrow after him when he returns. Elminate every one else. This is not a stealth mission. If the police stop you when your done, show them the badge I gave you.”

“understood sir”

Waiting until he left in the rafters was long and boring but when he left and I leapt it was with a heart beating wildly in exhalation. Landing in the middle of the crowd I moved like a blender, arms flying with every movement, dodging bloody arcs with the ease of long practice. No one here had an active aura except me, as attested to bhy the ability to behead three white fuang soldiers at one. I had fun, practicing my more complicated anti bipedal forms. So I luagehd my high pitched cackle, and took imbs limbs and heads. When I was done, I did my standard sweep, and left, bloody boot prints leading outside. Where the police were waiting, I showed them my badge, which proclaimed me as red branwen journeyman culler, and they let me leave. It was not a stealth operation afterall.

Returning to beacon in an equally luxurious bullhead was odd, but walking the school grou d alone at night was odder. It felt strange to be out and about without my cloak after so long with it. Every culler who wasnt an apprentice was given a different colored cloak, like my mothers white one, or my fathers maroon one. Reaching my room, I opened the door, it had no lock because no one else was here yet. I settled down to get around eight hours of sleep, on the bed, which really wasnt what I woud have expected after the bullhead.

The bed I was given was a cot, so as not to promote favourtism before the intiation. Which at least madce waking up early easier. I woke up when dawn broke trough the windows, washed my combat kit that I hadnt gotten too last night in the shower, then oiled and maintianed it. I had avoided most of the blood, but deathwalker was a weapon and had gunked up he gears a bit. Ruby rose had named her weapon after a flower and the moon, red branwen named hers after what she did with it. I thought it was somewhat poetic. Walking down long hallways in the same color made reaching the breakfast area somewhat difficult, but I managed. Breakfast was served in a large caefteria, and breakfast was a surpisingly lavis meal of meat, and eggs, and holy shit they had biscuits??! biscuits and gravy in addtion to bacon and eggs. I m very dignified yes. I ate far earlier than anyone else, mask pulled just above my nose, keeping my face covered still. I was uncertain how to handle eating when I was assigned a team, especialy as I would be a primarily solo hunter afterwards. Protocll, had an answer of course, but they were likely to remark on it. The branwen were a force in anima and there hadnt been a tithe paid to beacon in twenty years. So most hunters children likely thought qrow and raven branwen to be eccentrics. I spent my free day in the gym, working my way trough exercise routins made easier by standardized equipment. Bench presses, leg presses, a fifteen kilo run, which took an forty mintues. I was out of breathe afterwards so I did my mobility streches, and then I performed my stances and forms. And took death walker to the range where I made sure it was in working order. A 12.7mm semi auto anti-material rifle, while not delicate, is bad if it misfires, so I made sure it wouldn't.


	6. intiation

The hours leading up to intiation day were nerve wracking to tell the truth. But I managed I think, after my exercises and maintencence were done I read, and played around on the scroll ozpin gave me, and I was first into the audiotorium to hear his speech. A chiefs adress must be given proper respect, and aunt raven and qrow father had told me to treat him with such resect. The speech was short and disheartening, but it was quick, and then there was some drama between a white haired girl, schnee according to qrow father, and a black haired fuanus trying to hide beneath a bow. Fuanuas are equa in the eyes of the law, especially if its one of the hunters upholding it, because fuanuns have benefits to he profession that humans don't, but its not uncommon for fuanus who can to hide as human. Saves them from racism. I hoped she knew that the staff aready knew.

\-------

In the morning I ate agin, went trough my forms, and met up on the cliff for intiation, and it went smoothly. Luanched trough the air, and landed quickly do to my semblence, and followed the sound of battle to a fight between the schnee and a pack of beowulves. She was a decent technica fighter. Her fencing was superb but she was fighting grimm, not peope, so I gave her some fire support. She turned around as I dusted the last grimm, and met my mask, before saying a exasperated voice, “oh great I get the branwen”

“yes this is indeed a boon. Lets work well together heiress schnee.”

“y-you know who I am?”

“yes the branwen tribe recognizes those who rule the world.”

“o-oh”

“yes, the relic is to the north, which is that way. We will split the division of labor in this manor, you will handle social things, and academics, I will handle surviial and direct combat. You are a support oriented fighter. I am not. You have been clasdicaly educated, I have not. Thus we help each other.”

she appeared to think this over, but eventually agreed and we walked. I took the moment to take her in in full, a blue and white bolero jacket, a knee length dress and high heeed boots were fundamentally unlike my combat atttire, so I thought to ask her.

“why do so many huntresses wear heels? I find them unsuited for wild terrain.”

“its a matter of public perception to be honest. Branwens tend to work as cullers, and are therefore in the wilds most often, but those of us on different tracks have to be able to inspire people and its hard to do that if your short, so some of us learn to fight in heels if genetics has stopped us from reaching what others achieve.”

“ah, I understand.”

fighting packs of beowulves with the schnee heiress ,was a matter of acimatization, I would hook and pull, and slice, she would poke and prod and use glyph, and eventualy we managed to mesh together well enough. We even killed some ursas together. Not the most impressive thing I had ever kiled, but leaving their steaming carcass behind was satisfying nothenless. All branwen masks wrre carved out of elder grimm bone, since it is as hard as steel ,but still workable.

We prcoeded to the relic repository and found sister-yang and the hidden fuanus fighting a elder death stalker. Me and schee sat together and hatched a rudimentary plan, she froze its legs in place, and I teletported to each leg and took them at their top most joint. It was a p[arade of shnicks and the shearing sound of bone, but the death stalker hit the ground, and I went for its tai ,dodging strikes, ai blocked them in a whirl, evading venom and death by a hiars breadth. And I took the top of its tail, ans heirress schnee drove her rapier trough its eyes finishing the beast.

We grabbed the knight pieces after seeing the matching pieces wee in sister-yangs hands. And we all walked back to beacon together ignoring the blone boys corpse and the crying redhead. People die at beacon, because this is deadly work. If he was not fit for the wschool then he wouldnt survive intiation. She would be put in the parthnerless floater pool until a team had a casualty and she'd be added, or three ther parthnerless floaters could be found.

At the team naming ceremony a picture was nsapped of our team in post mission glory, a medal pinned on me and heiress schnees chest, to denote our glory, and the grand feat we had achieved, grand for students at least. And team RWBY retreat to the dorms. Once there, I turned to heiress schnee and adressed the elephant in the room. “ I am unsure why I was made the leader of this unit. I am a journey man culler, and once I graduate wil be used as a master culler until such time as I find an apprentice. I suspect I was chosen simply so the name would make sense. If heiress schnee desires I am willing to let her be in de facto command, except in postions where my strengths outweigh hers, a co-commander structure, following the rules laid out in the forest. Combat and survivial, and outlying settlements, versus acadmeics, social, and cities.”

“this is acceptable to me, does the rest of the team have any objections”

the hidden fuanuses bow flatted but she raised none, likely thinking a human wouldn't. Sister yang simply gave a thumbs up and said it was, “ just happy to be on a team with my sister. Havent seen you in months bro, how you been?”

“i have been well sister-yang, I look forward to woring with you in the near future. I suggest we set up our living spaces, and prepare for class tommorow.”

beacon used to have uniforms, but it was deemed more efficent in case of emergeniceis, and as additional training to have everyone wear their full combat kit at all times. This meant our morning casses were a riot of color and noise, but professor ports stories were enlightening, hunting stories always were. They tod you about the hunter just as much as about the prey, and which biases they had when they performed their work. Our classes prceded smoothly for a week or two and then I was called out to do my job, and given a target. A small gang, they had stepped into the postion of that part of the white fang cel I had eterminated. This time I was to leave a single surviror, crippled so he couldn't procede in his previous empoyment, and have him spread the message since it hadnt been received last time. I went out, and killed seventeen people without aura, and took a mans shooting arm. I felt nothing. I went back to school, took a shower, and ate dinner with my teamates, laughing my cacke at a joke, but otherwise being quite. I prayed after dinner and slept ike the dead.

**Author's Note:**

> so, chapters notes, the branwen eyes link the tribe, they indicate well, that ones gonna be real good at violence, and real bad at empathy. most other things will be explained in the story.


End file.
